Bekki stopped his steed and shaded his eyes and finally said, 'Yellow, I ween.'
'Flowers, do you think? Gwynthyme blossoms?'
Bekki shrugged.
'Oh, I do hope so,' said Tip, 'for if it is, then there's a great crop up there.'
Bekki grunted and replied, 'Pray to Elwydd it is gwynthyme and not yellow oxeye daisies.'
That evening they camped at the foot of the trail leading toward the top of the mile-high cliff. The length of the perpendicular bluff itself ran to the east for perhaps ten miles and towered into the sky; sheer it was, with long vertical ripples running down the drop of the stone face, now glowing bloodred in the setting sun.
Tip peered at the vast expanse and shuddered, but whether from fear of what was to come or from the chill air, he could not say.
It was raining the next morning as they twisted and turned up the narrow trail, Bekki riding in the lead, two pack ponies trailing, then Tipperton came after on his steed with two pack ponies following him as well. At times they dismounted and took to foot to give the ponies a breather, and at other times they stopped altogether, giving all a rest. But soon they would continue onward, climbing the steep, winding trail; and the higher they gained, the sheerer the drop to the right, and the closer to the left fared Tip, his heart racing at the thought of the fall but a pace or so away.
Yet at last nigh the noontide, the rain stopped just as they came to the top of the bluff and into an aspen woodland, the green leaves trembling and dripping water in the drift of cold air sliding down from the white mountain slopes far above, where more snow had fallen instead of rain.
'Let us ride onward,' said Bekki, 'five miles or so, to the midpoint atop the massif, to my campsite of old. Then we will look for the golden flowers.'
'All right,' said Tip, his breath coming easy now that he was surrounded by trees on all sides.
Tip forced himself to the lip of the stone and peered downward, only to quickly draw back. 'There's nothing there but a long fall.'
Bekki, standing on the very brim, leaned over and looked down as well. 'It has an overhang, Tipperton. You have to look inward. And, ah, there are flowers. Leftward.'
Tip stepped toward the edge and flopped down on his belly and pulled himself forward to peer beyond the lip. You can do this, bucco. Just remember, a thirty-foot fall will kill you just as dead as a fall of a mile or so, and you've been well beyond thirty feet before. The only difference being, at this height you'll get to scream much longer on the way down.
His heart hammering, Tip looked leftward. There in the near distance he could see pale yellow blossoms nodding in the chill air. Farther beyond he could see another patch, and several even farther. Tip looked to the right, and yellow flowers nodded there, too. 'Oh my, Bekki, what a wondrous trove you have found.'
'Growing in the cracks like I said,' muttered Bekki. Then he looked at Tip, his eyes widening in surprise to see the buccan lying at the lip on his stomach as if he were afraid of heights. Shaking his head, Bekki grunted, then said, 'Come, Tipperton, let us climb down and see if these are gwynthyme blossoms or are oxeye daisies instead.'
'They're not oxeye daisies,' said Tipperton above the long drop, his voice tight with tension. 'Daisies have yellow centers, but their petals are white, and these petals are yellow.'
'Well, some other all-yellow flower then,' said Bekki. 'Marigolds or some such.'
Tip slid back from the lip and stood. 'Marigolds grow in swamps, or so I've heard, and not in stone cracks along mountain faces.'
'Regardless!' snapped Bekki, striding off to the left.
'Look, Bekki,' said Tip, running after, 'you just happened to pick the only two flowers I know anything about. Oh, and roses. It's not as if I'm an expert. Oh, clover, too. -And bluebells, and yellow-eyed violets and…'
Bekki stopped along the brim and looked down and inward. 'Here they are,' he growled, then turned to Tip. 'Have you the sketch?'
Tip patted his jacket pocket.
'Good,' said Bekki, surveying the stone. 'I'll fetch one, and then we'll see.'
'I'll get the ropes and rock-nails and such,' said Tip, turning to go back to the camp.
'They won't be needed,' said Bekki, and he clambered over the brim to begin free-climbing down.
'But the stone is wet,' called Tip.
'Not here under the overhang,' drifted up Bekki's reply.
Tip flopped down and slid to the edge and held his breath more than once, closing his eyes at times, as Bekki edged downward to the blossoms.
'It's gwynthyme, all right,' exclaimed Tip, grinning, comparing the sketch Beau had drawn to the sprig in Bekki's hand.
Bekki grinned fiercely, too, and growled, 'Serrated trifoliate aromatic leaves and all,' then burst out laughing.
Giggling, Tip folded the vellum and slipped it back into his pocket. As they made their way toward camp, Tip said, 'Tomorrow we will begin marking all the places where the gwynthyme grows, and when comes the full moon of September-um, twenty-six days from now-then we begin the harvest.'
Now that he had a task to do, Tipperton was much less timorous at the lip of the massif. Rain or shine, he and Bekki spent the next eleven days roaming along the verge of the precipice and stacking small piles of stones at each place along the rim where they could see the pale yellow blossoms of gwynthyme growing in cracks and crevices below.
But on the twelfth day, when they came again to the lip, Tip looked over the rim to see blossoms and petals falling away in the wind, spiralling downward in a pale golden shower, as the gwynthyme shed its flowers.
'Oh my, but this will make it harder to spot the mint below.'
Bekki nodded but then said, 'Harder for us but nevertheless a good sign, for the gwynthyme is coming to fruition.'
'I wonder why it picks now to do so?' asked Tip. 'I mean, cast off its flowers.'
Bekki frowned, then his visage brightened. 'You said it yourself, Tipperton, months past.'
Tip looked at Bekki in puzzlement. 'I did?'
'Aye. This mission, the gwynthyme, all is governed by Elwydd's light, and this day, this night, is the dark of the moon altogether.'
'Ah, so it is, Bekki. So it is.'
Later that day, it began to rain along the massif and to snow in the mountains above. Tipperton sighed and said, 'I say, Bekki, does it seem to you it's been raining more lately?'
Bekki looked up into the drizzle. 'Aye, it does.'
Tip shook his head, then said, 'What do you suppose causes it? Could it have something to do with the dust high in the sky, blowing about on the wind? I mean, even on the best of days, still the sky is a bit grey and the sun seems pale and there is a chill in the air. And add to that the frequent rain. So what do you think, eh?'
Bekki shrugged. 'Who knows how Garlon makes the rain?'
Tip frowned. 'Garlon?'
Bekki looked at Tip in surprise. 'He is master of water. How else do you think it rains?'
Tip turned up his hands. 'I dunno. The wind. Water. Perhaps the wind blows across the water and lifts some up to come down elsewhere as rain.'
Bekki snorted. 'Then how would you explain the Karoo?'
'The Karoo?'
'Aye. The great desert beyond the Avagon Sea. It has wind. It has the ocean at hand. Yet it seldom rains in that place of dunes, full of sand as it were. And even when it does rain there, the water is pure and not salt from the sea. -Windblown water? Nay, Tipperton. I'll take Garlon instead.'
Tip shook his head but remained silent, and he and Bekki continued along the rim.
That night under the gloom above, Bekki awakened Tipperton, a finger to the buccan's lips.
'What is it?' whispered Tip.
'Someone comes along the rim,' gritted Bekki, a shield on his arm, his war hammer in hand.
Tipperton listened, and to the east he could hear the thud of jogging feet. 'More than one someone,' hissed the Warrow, reaching for his bow and quiver.
'The ponies,' growled Bekki. 'We must keep them quiet.'
